Wu, K;
Wu, G;
MacRobert, AJ;
Allan, E;
Gavriilidis, A;
Parkin, IP;
(2020)
Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene with incorporated crystal violet and gold nanoclusters is antimicrobial in low intensity light and in the dark.
Materials Advances
10.1039/d0ma00710b.
(In press).
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Abstract
Antibiotics lose their effectiveness over time due to antimicrobial resistance. The increasing risk of hospital-acquired infections from contaminated surfaces and medical interventions requires the development of new antimicrobial materials. We report the first example of a modified ultra high molecular weight polyethylene that showed good antibacterial properties on light activation. Its efficacy was due to the production of reactive oxygen species under low-intensity white light sources (ca. 375 lux). Crystal violet and cysteine capped gold nanoclusters were successfully incorporated into the polymer using a readily available solvent as a dispersing agent followed by the process of compression moulding at 200 °C, 4.5 MPa for 1 min. This modified ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene demonstrates excellent robustness with regards to dye and metal leaching as well as photostability. Despite incorporating antimicrobial agents, the modified ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene retained its mechanical properties and showed >99% reduction in bacterial numbers against Escherichia coli and. To our knowledge, this paper reports the first use of compression moulding to create a light-activated antimicrobial surface which has distinct processing advantages over the widely used “swell-encapsulation-shrink” method and is potentially scalable.
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